"If I had only known it!" he said. "I would to God I had!"
"Well, you know it now," she answered, "and you can take me home."
"I wish I could," he answered, "but I am not going home myself. To whom can I trust you?"
"I have waited so long," said Agnes, "I can wait a little longer, and until you are ready I can stay with Jeanne. I am not afraid of her."
She had risen and was standing before him. He almost laughed as he looked at her in her quaint Dutch dress, short petticoats and sabots, and on her head a little tight cap which could not hide the golden hair curling about her face. Ah! she was very pretty and very young, a pale white shadow of the Agnes of olden days; but to him the very sadness of her sweet face added to its beauty. She had been all smiles and dimples; now one had to watch, for the smiles and the dimples were gone.
He left her standing, and walked twice round the deck of the little barge; then he came back to her.
"I think you are wise," he said; "remain with Jeanne; only you must go farther up the canal. It is not safe for you to stay here. Where is the woman's husband?"
"We do not know; we thought he would have come back before this," said Agnes. "Perhaps he is killed!"
Jeanne, hearing this, began to weep.
"Oh no, the good God would not afflict me so!" she said. "If we did wrong in taking the money our eyes were blinded, and we did not know. Surely we shall not be punished!"